Last year, for instance, survey questions that I included with two posts generated very interesting results.

In August, I reported on a guy who got pissed at the cops for screwing up his life with a marijuana arrest, so he responded by crushing some empty police cars with a tractor. I gave people four possible ways of responding to this story, and the results (based on my arbitrary division) showed a 60-40 split in favor of libertarianism.

In November, I asked which candidate readers preferred. I was somewhat surprised by the results. Not only did Romney get nearly 70 percent of the total, but Obama wasn’t that far behind Gary Johnson. I’m not sure how to interpret those results, but they definitely suggest that anti-Obamaism was more powerful than pro-liberatarianism.

So now I’d like to get a sense of how readers view gun control. Here’s a poll with five possible answers. Feel free to share it widely so we can get the broadest possible set of responses.

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52 Responses

I can’t vote, because there are many reasons. I could pick any of the four reasons you list for being in favor. I could also add that I enjoy shooting. I want to normalize responsible gun owndership for my kids. Unadvertised gun ownership is a positive externality in my neighborhood, and I’m happy to let my elderly and infirm neighbors free ride on that. I believe in the personal benefits associated with mastery of dangerous stuff like fire, forestry and power tools and firearms.

The answers to this question do not reflect my support of the second amendment. My answer would be an all of the above as in protect myself and my family and it is a liberty that shouldn’t be surrendered. Each option bears equal weight.

I agree with “leap”, I don’t understand how one would prioritize some of those reasons as more “main” than others. They’re very different kinds of reasons.

I would also add the Constitution itself as another reason—not that I want to protect the Constitution for its own sake, but that I want to salvage (or build back up, if you’re an optimist) something of the culture that respects that kind of structure. In this way, protecting the Constitution is more important than any one thing it was intended to protect, because the whole thing is the basis of our system of ordered liberty, if that makes sense.

“No particular reason, I just believe in liberty” … because a free people are a productive people and a productive people will inevitably win the evolutional competition of cultures. Utility and its relation to success is what shapes the morals that will ultimately prevail, not the other way around — whether we like it or not.

Yes, the other reasons are also valid, but they come distant seconds to the utilitarian (and really, inescapable) general value of liberty.

So yes. One of the reasons I work, providing people new cures for once intractable diseases, is to buy and own guns. I will not pack up and go live on welfare if a majority takes my gun away, but I will have one less reason to work, a little less motivation and, actually, at some point, will cross the threshold and completely go home, if you also raise my taxes, take my gun away and offer me ObamaCare paid by others, education for my kids paid by others and housing paid by others (those that are left working anyway). A small parenthesis: as you can probably tell from the volume of comments I post here, I’m already not as committed to working to save your life at the maximum of my abilities and available time — and with the new dis-incentives to earn and incentives to indolence you keep giving me, dear American People, it is only bound to get worse — but I know you can just grab someone from the unemployment line and replace me…

Back to the contribution arms make to liberty, productivity and cultural natural selection…

What use each one person makes with this liberty, I’m not sure, but if you want to get closer to my own relationship with guns, watch the movie Dersu Uzala by Akira Kurosawa. I don’t know why that movie feels to me something that may resonate with libertarians, but if you do, I’d be interested in hearing why.

One last thing,
There are many women who own guns, but I would tend to liken the typical relationship that men have with guns with the relationship women have with makeup. And BTW, if we could count the number of deaths per year attributable to women putting makeup in their cars, I suspect the number would be higher than the number of people killed per year in shooting sprees and gun accidents. But I don’t want to ban makeup either, as some societies have.

I’m with Zorba. There are certainly utilitarian reasons why I own guns and oppose gun control, but at the end of the day I’m of the mind that liberty is an end unto itself; it does not require utilitarian justification.

Also, opposing gun control offends all the right people. If I’m being completely honest, I’m forced to admit that I take a perverse sort of glee in jamming a thumb into authoritarians’ eyes.

To protect us from “relocation” as what is happening in Brazil.
To hunt for means of food.
To protect us from crime.
To protect our right to own inanimate objects.
To protect our right to protect ourselves.
To protect our basic right to govern ourselves.

I think the reason to oppose gun control is three fold: First, the wording of the US Constitutions Second Amendment specifically removed any doubt about this particular right. And because for citizens of the United States, governments do not grant rights (see the Declaration of Independence,) any attempt to infringe on or remove a right by the government necessitates opposition by the people who instituted the government to live in a “free State.”

Secondly, a requirement for good government is that the government be regulated, not by the government itself which is an oxymoron but by the people who instituted the government. The rights of free persons are fragile in the face of a tyrant (bully) and governments become bullies over time. It probably is not much fun being in government unless you can spend other people’s money and receive their adulation for solving their problems. But “free States” require free people. Free people solve their problems using their rights not infringing on or denying them.

Thirdly, if being a subject and accepting that the government should and can decide how you may pursue life, liberty and happiness is not for you then opposition to any infringement on your rights is your only reasonable course of action.

If you think this gun control issue is about violence instituted by bad people using guns to harm or kill innocents you are not alone. But, it is not. Just like the so called Patriot Act, timing is everything for bringing out the solution. The ploy is very old and very effective. Promote fear and concern, depict those who disagree as uncaring and unreasonable, offer a “tough” solution and insist that the solution is not really un-patriotic but truly patriotic. This is about men and women who want control and want to dispense favors or punish others to get and maintain control.

[…] Morally, I think there is a presumption that free people should have the means to protect themselves. It doesn’t matter if they want to guard against crime, whether they’re worried about social breakdown (my concern, as I explain in this NRA-TV interview), or if they fear government tyranny (the most common answer in this poll). […]

[…] Simply stated, would you want to leave your family vulnerable, and rely on the callow and feckless political class for their safety? I hope not, which is why I’m surprised that “protection during a societal breakdown” only got about 13 percent of the vote in my poll asking the most important reason to oppose gun control. […]

Obviously the recent tradgidies @ Sandy Hook are disgusting and appaulling. Seeing gun control for law abiding citizens also gives me the creeps. Especially after seeing the recent news about the x-law enforcement guy in California! Sorry, I don’t trust anyone. I have to protect myself, my family and those I love.
(sorry about the spelling)
DJB

[…] Simply stated, would you want to leave your family vulnerable, and rely on the callow and feckless political class for their safety? I hope not, which is why I’m surprised that “protection during a societal breakdown” only got about 13 percent of the vote in my poll asking the most important reason to oppose gun control. […]

You left out of your little poll the most basic reason for the Second Amendment, and the one that libertarians absolutely despise: The defense of community and homeland. You people are so individualist and so devoid of any sense of loyalty, duty, or patriotism that it’s no wonder you are seen as a threat by some.

It’s no wonder “our side” fails so often at the ballot box. You all need to understand that most people are NOT in agreement with you on your basic approach to societal life, and thus see you as loose cannons and nutcases.

The points you mention are valid reasons to be active Second Amendment supproters. BUT, until you develop the character and morality to move past your self-centeredness and lack of collective or community identity, you will continue to lose. And deservedly so. I only regret that you are dragging America (yes, I actually am a patriot, unlike libertarians) and our people down with you.

To be both more accurate and useful, Dan, this poll needs to allow responders to rate their answers in order of importance, rather than choosing just one which implies the others are unimportant. I had a very hard time choosing…

And in deference to the amazing diatribe from @Tom above, which ignores the fundamental reasons America gained its independence from a repressive government in the first place, it could also include a fill-in-the-reason option. Then he wouldn’t be able to whine that freedom-lovers ignore his “most basic reason.”

[…] Simply stated, would you want to leave your family vulnerable, and rely on the callow and feckless political class for their safety? I hope not, which is why I’m surprised that “protection during a societal breakdown” only got about 13 percent of the vote in my poll asking the most important reason to oppose gun control. […]

You make the perfect argument in favor of an “assault weapons” ban. You think about such matters only from the selfish perspective of personal preference, not the survival of the country. That is how most people will view your attitude, and thus why, if you all don’t learn to shut up, they will demand more than they do now such controls. You see, my mental inferior, those people won’t consider your hobby and preference worth facilitating school shootings. They will reject your “resistance to tyranny” claims because they are smart enough to know you would never be able to submit yourself enough to form a collective resistance, even if such a resistance would have any sort of chance. They will see that all you really mean by that is that YOU yourself would put up a token fight with your tripped-out AR or whatever arm you prefer, that you really don’t know how to use, not actually accomplish the overthrow of the oppression. Then they will conclude that personal self-protection can be reasonably accomplished with non-“AW” arms, that people like you really don’t deserve anything more than that, and thus insist those toys you make all tactiCOOL be banned as unnecessary and dangerous.

And get this! They will be right. The Founders did not establish a land of freedom so that people could engage in self-indulgence. They wanted a people wwho were restrained by principles and values higher than, “BUT I WANT IT!” If the Founders were resurrected today, they would look at our people and declare them unworthy of freedom. They wouldn’t just say this about liberals or the Left. They would look at those who claim the mantle they left, see these modern-day “Tea Party” people as selfish, indulgent, and without any sense of duty, and then declare them the worst of all. They would not lead a revolution. They would say the American people probably need a couple of generations under some degree of tyranny in order to teach them a lesson.

But you all cannot understand that. You are too dumbed down by your selfishness. And now you are being spanked for it. I just wish you all weren’t destroying the country and disarming patriots like me in the process.

@Tom. Amazing, a polemical diatribe! And yet you seem to pretend you care, what happened to politeness and humility?

You seem incapable of answering my simple question. Are you so convinced you’re right, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you can’t conduct a civil discussion? Your reply demonstrates that you’d do well to learn a new way to think…

“Politeness and humility”? Well, politeness is inappropriate here, as what is needed is to force you to think properly. As for humility, I cannot bring myself to lie and deny that I am your superior. I would ask you in response, what happened to duty and community, but the answer is obvious: You sold it away in the name of individual indulgence.

Your question has no relevance to the issue. You cannot understand that because your selfishness prevents you from looking beyond yourself. So the issue of the right to arms has no significance beyond your own desire. You do not uphold it as a responsibility or a function, but rather as an indulgence. Such an attitude is not worthy of respect, but rather of contempt. It is evil, and you would do well to reform your mind to a degree of righteousness.

Learn to look beyond yourself, beyond the individual. Look at yourself as part of something greater–part of your community, your race, your nation, etc. See your life in that context. The truth is that your personal freedom depends on the well-being of the country. Insistence on personal preferences when those preferences would politically or practically endanger the entity securing that freedom is so contrary to good sense as to render your entire ability of judgment in question.

Break down the libertarian/individualist barrier to such thinking. Look back to your ancestors, who had values and rejected responsibility-free liberty. Restore that foundation of righteousness upon which our people founded this country. Deprecate yourself, and become a patriot.

Wow, @Tom believes in the right to “force” others to adopt his very peculiar opinion. So is it okay to use a gun to defend myself against your coercive force? That should be easy to answer – but can you, will you?

Tom, you’re just being right. You seem to believe your opinion is guaranteed right, whereas it’s just your opinion. Haven’t you yet realized that it depends on your context and, since your context will change as you grow up, so does your opinion. Since most people’s context is different to yours, their opinion, naturally, will also be different…

May I suggest you invest serious time and energy in learning how to think for yourself before continuing to demonstrate such arrogance…

So I take it that all you are on here to do is direct people to your New Age guru site and get people to pay you a ton of money for a bunch of fluff. That explains everything you say, answers every question about your motivation, and discredits your criticism of me as simply being launching boards for your spam.

I love what you say on your site about your book, “Self-sabotage”: “We [yeah, “we”–riiight] once received the following comment: ‘The book on self sabotage? Seems too expensive for US appetites.’ Yet once you consider the return you’ll make on such a small investment, you’ll realize it’s amazingly affordable – the bargain of the century – rather than expensive.”

(Believe me, folks, a couple of good friends and a purpose beyond yourself which they share will do everything that book claims it can do, without the cost, and with far more tremendous benefits to everyone.)

Moving on from your spamming: I ahouls warn you that when you hint of “using a gun” against the force of my words, that could be taken as implying a physical threat. I would recommend asking that the post be taken down before certain authorities see it.

But, to address your tired criticism, my “opinion” is not an opinion. It’s an expression of values and morals, values and morals far more in line with those of the Founding Fathers than anything libertarians promote. My point in all of this is that when gun rights are depicted as being little more than a “right” to keep and play on a checkerboard, people out there turned off. Checkers are not generally lethal weapons. In order to not lose the good will gained for the Second Amendment over that past ten years or so since the Y2K scare and 9/11, champions of that right need to present it as having benefit to society, not simply an indulgent pasttime for practitioners. By focusing on the value of private arms ownership in such matters as community and homeland security, people can see a reason for rejecting emotional calls for ever-increasing gun restrictions. And by establishing a solid and universal rationale for the right, much of the political drama around guns can be settled–“Civilians have a general right to this, they don’t have a right to that, and this thing here can limited based on this or that factor.” Then the American people–with what I believe to a fundamental issue in our personal and societal lives settled–can move on to confront other issues facing us.

I know libertarian-types don’t appreciate that. They only focus on the individual, without regard to principles or the well-being of the society that protects and facilitates the “liberty” they hold so dear. My hope is that by bombarding people like that with basic truth in power, they will at least moderate their tone and accept to a degree a more holistic view of this issue.

And I do believe it’s possible now. I doubted it based on your responses, but now that I’ve verified you are nothing but an aspiring L. Ron Hubbard on a spamming campaign, I know your responses are not necessarily representative of people here.

Now, just go back to your New Age guruism and build your little business. Who knows? Maybe someone might actually get some help from it. Just please consider not fleecing them too much. Try to be a nice guy. You can take a little bit from them, but don’t be too greedy. Let them keep their lives and their basic savings.

[…] I’m not worried that the United States is going to turn into some Venezuelan-style anti-gun totalitarian regime, so I actually disagree with the results of my poll on the biggest reason to oppose gun control. […]

[…] I’m not worried that the United States is going to turn into some Venezuelan-style anti-gun totalitarian regime, so I actually disagree with the results of my poll on the biggest reason to oppose gun control. […]

[…] Morally, I think there is a presumption that free people should have the means to protect themselves. It doesn’t matter if they want to guard against crime, whether they’re worried about social breakdown (my concern, as I explain in this NRA-TV interview), or if they fear government tyranny (the most common answer in this poll). […]

Everybody has their own reason for supporting the 2nd, and all are valid. The most important reason, however, is and should always be the reason the Founding Fathers included it in the Bill of Rights. That reason is to preserve the means to oppose tyranny. Once we’ve lost that, the rest of the Constitution is worthless.

I live in ny where governor Cuamo railroaded his own laws into effect, which deeply hurt law-abiding citizens. Anyone that suffers from depression cannot own a firearm. My question concerns the police force. What is their divorce, suicide and alcoholism rate?
I don’t like this.

Dan, if you instead made your poll so that people can rate their reasons in order of importance, you’d get a far better idea of gun-owners’ motivation… I have good several reasons, and asking me to choose only one is too restrictive.

tom,
You keep asserting what the founders envisioned, all you need to do is read the federalist papers to know what and why they thought about the role of government. You will find your thoughts and rants to be inline with those of the Torys(loyalists as they called themselves) who opposed the founders at all turns. If you read article 46 you’ll find they believed in the power of an armed citizenry fighting for their own individual common liberties against any foe foreign or domestic. People do not have anything that they will universally agree on so to each their own. So if everyone stands behind everyone elses right to individualism then there is unity, not in specific goal sense, but in a sense of the founders dream of an individuals right to a personal pursuit of happiness. The one thing all people have opposition to is being told you can’t…which is why liberty is something that can unite.

Now as for the poll, both tyrannical government and societal collapse often run hand in hand throughout history. Though I choose liberty, the response is muttled by the fact that liberty implies the lack of need to justify ones right to choose as it does not require permission if it’s a right. So the “no specific reason” implies multiple reasons, in fact encompassing all the reasons listed, yet still saying that you are justifying it. It may be splitting hairs but I feel they are two separate answers.

If it were to be asked as to my purposes and uses of my firearms, well this is a bit different than why I support the right to own.

Firearms are like insurance policies, you have policies for different issues…auto, home, life, health, etc…and like insurance you hope not to need them for most of the important reasons. If you do, like insurance, you should know how to use them for maximum benefit.
There are side benefits to owning firearms as others mentioned…hunting, Plinking, competition(3 gun, long range, high power, silhouettes,etc)….these are merely fun recreational perks to having firearms, all are a fun way to hone your skills, but they are not the purpose of the 2 nd amendment just an extra use for guns in meantime. I used my yugo m70 ab2 (a folding stock ak 47) to take a running deer at 100+ yards two days ago. All the attributes that make it an outstanding performer in conflict(reliability, compactness, light weight) make it an excellent deer rifle. So I approve and encourage involvement in all shooting sports, just don’t let those uses take presidence over the right to protect your liberty, be it in personally or nationally.

I blame both the mainstream liberal media and the NRA for misleading and confusing this issue. Liberals prefer ignorance and rely on a false sense of security provided by an implied order of government regulation…”if we pass a law against it we’ll feel safer””someone should be paid to take care of me!”, that is what their words actions say…and tyrants love people looking to be led and taken care of…
The NRA on the other hand is always on the defense, and prefers to pick its battles. This tactic I think is the effectively accomplishing the proverbial “winning the battles but losing the war”. They and the politicians they back say “we support hunting rights or self defense.” Proclaiming these as 2nd amendment rights which waters down the purpose of its intent. Everyone knows “…the right to bear arms shall not be infringed” because the NRA drums it into us. However, how many actually can quote it in its entirety?

Why does this matter? The first 70% is the amendment, the end part is just clarifying what is both implied & required for implementing the amendment. The issue that the NRA is avoiding here is the role and implementation of the constitutional militia. Liberals and authoritarians created the national guard to replace this. However it doesn’t, as it is state governed not locally as envisioned. I’m not against the guard but look at it as a supplemental entity, not replacement.

The NRAs failure to stay on the main issue leaves opposition saying “do you NEED a standard capacity magazine for hunting?” or “do you NEED a 10 rds to stop a gang banging degenerate from raping and murdering your daughter?” When the issue is people have the right to have whatever the opposition has, even if the opposition is a foreign or domestic government entity.

[…] I’m not worried that the United States is going to turn into some Venezuelan-style anti-gun totalitarian regime, so I actually disagree with the results of my poll on the biggest reason to oppose gun control. […]